What Lies Within
by Phanty
Summary: Erik's coffin contains a dark secret that should never be revealed. Written for the third Phantom Morbidity contest on PFN. oneshot. Leroux based.


**A/N: This story was written for the third Phantom Morbidity contest over at PFN, and ranked 15 out of 24. **

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Phantom related.

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What Lies Within

The house on the lake contained many curious rooms, but the most curious of all was Erik's bedroom. In one corner of the room stood a great stone fireplace, which emitted an ominous dark glow of golden light over all that it could reach. Thick black hangings adorned the walls that were painted the sinister color of blood. In the center of the room hung deep crimson red curtains, which fell majestically around a simple wooden coffin that had been placed there. Erik's bedroom décor produced such a strong funereal ambiance that one would wonder if they were still among the living, or if they had passed on into the realm of the dead.

Erik couldn't help giving a slight shudder as he gravely walked into his dark gloomy bedroom, his eyes being immediately drawn to the coffin. He always had a strange sense that it was waiting for him, calling him to the next life. Erik constantly felt that he no longer had the will to live any longer. To him, the casket was a constant reminder of his loss.

The coffin used to be the place where he would sleep away his pain, loosing himself in his dreams. Since Christine had left though, sleep eluded him. She was never far from his thoughts, leaving him continually mournful and feeling her absence.

Barely making a sound he moved over the thick black carpet toward the oblong box. Kneeling down beside it, his mind quickly became flooded with memories of Christine.

"Oh Christine," he said mournfully. "Why did you leave me? Why did _he_ have to come?"

Slowly closing his eyes, a tear gently rolled down his cheek. How he wished that she would come back to him. Erik agonizingly longed to see her again once more before his death, which he felt soon to be upon him.

After what seemed an eternity, he slowly opened his lifeless eyes and found himself unbelievably gazing upon the face of Christine! She was there with him!

"Christine!" he exclaimed, swiftly getting to his feet.

He could hardly believe his eyes, but she stood there right in front of him, tangible as the books that lay on the shelves. Erik thought that she had left him forever. It was not true . . . it was a lie.

Christine seemed to be almost glowing with a radiant light. The blaze of the fireplace gently lit her outline from behind. Seeing her made Erik feel whole again. That part of him once ripped from his soul when she had left him, was now replenished again by her presence. She was so beautiful…so vibrant.

"I have come back to you, Erik," said Christine in an angelic voice, opening her delicate arms out to him.

"I thought that _he_ had taken you away from me forever!" exclaimed Erik.

She made no answer to his question, and only looked at him with a warm smile on her peaceful face. Soon his inquiries melted away, and were replaced with feelings of bliss.

"I have dreamed of you coming back to me, Christine," whispered Erik, almost weeping from joy at seeing her again. "You do not know how many times I have had those desperate dreams of you. Your memory never leaves me." Cautiously Erik put out his own hand to meet hers. They were to finally be reunited once again.

Slowly she started to walk towards him, her arms still outstretched ready for his welcoming grasp. Suddenly without warning she stopped, as her eyes fell upon the coffin that lay in-between them. Her eyes had a strange, glassy look to them as they gazed over the harsh, angular frame of the box.

"Christine," said Erik with a hint of alarm in his voice, "What is the matter? Does the coffin bother you? Don't let it bother you; it's only a wooden box. Christine?"

But her eyes moved swiftly from his intense, loving gaze back to the coffin. She seemed transfixed by it, almost hypnotized. She gently put out her hand and touched it without hesitation, gliding her fingers up and down its smooth wooden surface. An unknown power seemed to take her over.

Erik cried out to her, "Its alright, Christine! Come to me, please! Don't let the coffin pull you away from me. Christine!"

But his pleas fell on deaf ears, for as he said them Christine moved her hands to the seam of the coffin in an attempt to open it. She seemed even more illuminated now. The golden light from the fireplace lapped over her white dress from behind making her entire form glow in the inky black darkness that surrounded her. The power that the coffin emitted seemed to surge through her very veins, making her look electrified. She was not in Erik's control anymore.

"Christine! Don't open the coffin! I beg you, don't open the coffin!" Erik cried out again, falling to his knees in agony. He knew the secret that the coffin concealed. He knew the disastrous outcome that would happen if she opened it.

She did not listen to Erik's warnings. Instead she closed her eyes while her slim nimble fingers gently slid under the heavy lid of the casket, and to Erik's horror, slowly started to open it. The creaking sound that the hinges made was like a cry uttered by a thousand lost souls, resonating in Erik's head. Unstoppable, and uncontrollable they continued to cry out louder and louder in excruciating pain, until he put his hands to his ears in an attempt to silence them. Finally, there was quiet . . . the coffin was open.

Slowly Christine opened her eyes to look at the sight before her. A pleasurable smile crossed her porcelain face, revealing a look of triumph, until she finally realized what lay inside. Her triumphant gaze quickly turned to a gaze of horror. What she saw was something so wholly shocking and petrifying to her, that when she opened her mouth to scream, there came only silence.

She took a step back and shot Erik a desperate look that cut straight through him like a knife, causing his blood to run cold as ice. He saw in the depths of her pleading eyes a look of absolute peril and terror. Christine now knew the dreadful secret that the coffin contained.

She observed her hands, and to her amazement saw that they were slowly fading away into transparency right before her eyes. Erik tried to run towards her, to grasp her into his arms in an attempt to save her, but her entire form had already started vanishing away from him into the nothingness of which she had originally immerged. Erik could only look on in dismay as he helplessly watched _his_ Christine slowly disappear away before his eyes once more…until she was completely _gone_. The last thing that he saw of her, were two haunting, hopeless eyes.

Christine's expression of utter helplessness and dread was eternally etched in the mind of Erik. He understood the horror that had seized her. Erik knew that even the bravest of people would crumble if they opened a coffin and found themselves there inside…

Yes it was true. Christine was dead, and her body rested in that very coffin for these past several years. Erik never wished to accept the fact that she had died and that _he_, the Angel of Death, had taken her away from him. The Angel of Music always had great power over Christine in life, but the Angel of Death held an even greater power over her now in death.

Erik brutally tormented himself with her ghostly memory, _over and over_, trying to dream her back to him from the grave. But in these dreams, she never stayed long or listened to his warnings. The coffin always drew Christine to the same end, leaving Erik with the same despair. In dreams she would come to him, and a dream she remained.


End file.
